Shari Hearn asked: Remember a few years ago when the only juice you could find at the store was V8 and a selection of citrus juices? Now you can practically spend an hour in the store just deciding from which juice to choose. There’s protein juice blends, antioxidant blends, blueberry, apple, pomegranate, blends with green tea added. Not only do you have all the different types of juices and juice blends, but you have the different brands to choose from. And, don’t think it’s cheap. You can easily spend over $4 for just one 16 oz. bottle.
Now, imagine if you can take that $4 and, instead of spending it on the expensive store-bought juice, save it for your own juicer where you can make your own fresh juice each day. It may take a few months of savings to do it, but in the long run you’d not only be saving money, but also drinking a higher-quality product, your own fresh fruit and vegetable juice.
How healthy is juice? To get to the heart of why juice is good for you, it’s important to note that cooking can cause the loss of up to 97% of water-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Therefore, fresh juice from raw fruits and vegetables provides you with more vitamins and minerals, as well as protein, carbohydrates, and essential fatty acids that can be absorbed quickly and efficiently.
Fresh juice also contains necessary enzymes, and pigments such as carotenes, chlorophyll, and flavonoids. In addition, juicing helps jump-start your body’s digestive process and enables quick absorption of high-quality nutrition, which can result in increased energy.
Did you notice what word kept popping up in the above paragraphs? “Fresh.” Sure you can go to the store and buy the prepared bottled juices. But, a bottle of juice that’s been sitting for days on a store shelf isn’t exactly fresh, now is it? Some research suggests that the enzyme activity in juice just 30 minutes old is almost one-half that of freshly-juiced juices. Also, with fresh juicing there are no preservatives or processing that strips most of the energy from the fruit. Your juice is as fresh as the fruits and vegetables you started with.
Now, in case you were thinking you would just dust off the old blender and make your juice with it, take note: A blender just isn’t the same thing. To get all the benefits of juicing fruits and vegetables, you need to be able to process all parts of the food – including seeds, stems, peels and pulp. That’s where all the vitamins are. A blender just can’t do that effectively.
But, aren’t juicers expensive? Certainly some can be. You can buy a LEquip Pulp Ejector for just over $100, which is a great budget juicer to buy. If you have a little more money to spend, the Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite is considered one of the best juicers at just under $300. Other juicer brands you might want to take a look at include Omega and Champion.
It is important to note that juicing does remove the fiber from nutrient-dense foods. So be sure to include fiber-rich foods in your daily diet. Juicing should be a complement to a well-balanced healthy diet, never a substitute.
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